Nightmare Alley: Faustian Carnival Noir: The rise and fall: From Divinity to Geek

The Hanged Man XII or Dying God – this figure is Osiris or Christ and shows redemption through suffering. He is drowned in the waters of affliction.

“The spook racket – I was made for it.”

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Directed by Edmund Goulding is one of the more moody, nightmarish and sophisticated Noir films of it’s time. Goulding’s direction works like an expose of the sleazier aspects of carnival life, threaded with romance, both surreal and unseemly. Based on William Lindsay Gresham’s book and scripted by Jules Furthman (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep). The film is a grim and somber look inside the lives of carnival folk and the demons who ride their backs with drug and alcohol abuse, which breeds inhumanity and the nadir that people are capable of reaching. This beautiful nightmare is both picturesque and polluted with ugly ideologies.

Cinematography by Lee Garmes, (Morocco 1930, Shanghai Express 1932, Scarface 1932, Duel in the Sun 1946, The Paradine Case 1947, The Captive City 1952, Lady in a Cage 1964) Music by Cyril J. Mockridge, and set direction by Thomas Little (Laura 1944, Day the Earth Stood Still 1951). Edited by Barbara McLean.(All About Eve 1950, No Way Out 1950, Niagara 1953).

The film stars Tyrone Power as Stanton Carlisle a ruthless con artist with no morals who stumbles onto a traveling carnival. Not only did Powers want to see Nightmare Alley made, but he also wanted the leading role to show 20th Century Fox that he was more than just a pretty face. It also stars Joan Blondell (one of my favorites and known for her wise-cracking sex appeal) as Zeena Krumbein, Colleen Gray (Kay in The Killing 1956) as Molly, Ian Keith in an intense role as alcoholic mentalist Pete Krumbein and Mike Mazurki as the strongman Bruno.

Nightmare Alley is an enthrallingly morbid fable about the rise and fall of a greedy, socio-pathic charlatan Stanton Carlisle (Power) who uses his good looks and skillful deception to work his way from traveling carnival barker to high society mentalist. First, he seduces Zeena (Joan Blondell) a gentle soothsayer, in order to obtain the key to her and her husband Pete’s (Ian Keith) mind-reading code. Stanton accidentally poisons Pete when he gives him a bottle of wood alcohol. He then moves on to romance Molly (Colleen Gray) the beautiful young girlfriend of the strongman Bruno (Mazurki). Stanton winds up marrying Molly, and the two leave the seedy carnival life for better pickings as successful nightclub mentalists, of course using the code he charmed out of Zeena. But even the nightclub act is not enough to satiate his desire for power. He meets Lilith (Helen Walker) an unscrupulous psychologist (the film’s coded lesbian and cunning femme fatale) who has access to her clients and can feed Stanton confidential details from her patients. The pair begin to blackmail their clients out of money. The ‘spook racket’ is an extremely profitable scheme, but his plans to build a spiritualist empire is at risk when Molly’s integrity overshadows Lilith’s avarice.

Stanton Carlisle is the film’s charismatic Anti-Hero, the central character who thrusts the film’s narrative forward though there are three very strong female leads. Stanton is portrayed by Tyrone Power in perhaps one of the most enigmatic performances of his career; an amoral misanthrope whose inherent skill is to prey on the vulnerability of people’s weakness.

The film’s two powerful and kind women have a crucial interdependence on Stanton. They are the ‘caregiver’ archetype of women, who while not in threat of bodily harm, their danger lies more in the betrayal of their trust. However, Helen Walker’s heinous psychiatrist who preys on the weakness of others is aptly named Lilith, the most ‘notorious demon’ in Hebrew mythology. Stanton exploits the opportunity that each woman offers up.

It’s a story of a immoral, ill-fated scoundrel who spirals down even farther, into a remote dark corridor where humanity has no place to radiate its light. It’s a story of devouring power and the leap into the pit of perdition with no sign of redemption. A truly nihilistic vision. Ultimately at the climax of Nightmare Alley, Stanton has fallen into the depths of the self-imposed freak show in purgatory.

Mademoiselle Zeena is portrayed by the earthy, gutsy Joan Blondell who is seduced by Stanton Carlisle, the charming carnival barker, con-man into teaching him the secret of “The Blind Fold Code”. A word code that helps mentalists work a crowd of people who submit questions for the “Mentalist” to answer. This was once a very lucrative stunt that Zeena and her husband Pete (Ian Keith) used, which was worth its weight in gold.

Zeena is the catalyst, the unwitting Prophetess who gives away the word code to Stanton. A Faustian contract that ultimately seals his condemned fate. Stanton will sign his soul away for the secret. For him, it is a one-way ticket to obtaining a dark providence for the sake of a brief dance with power. His appetite is fueled by Protean greed to obtain more and more power and riches. He longs to be a bona fide Mentalist, in high society, not just a two-bit cheater in a fleabag carnival. He wants to tap into the profitable Spook Trade where there is more of a potential for wealth. Stanton sees himself becoming more like an Evangelist, a prophet helping ease people’s crisis of faith as well as their grief while turning a sizable profit.

Zeena is also a Circe or Hecate — a witch, a seer, like a figure seen in her obedience to the art of Tarot. And her visions see very dark forces ahead for Stanton. She is a tragic figure because she has fallen under Stanton’s alluring influence, yet she is a devoted caretaker to her husband Pete whose drinking has cast a shadow over their career and marriage. Zeena is a woman trapped by her superstitions and her reverence for the arcane mysteries of life. She’s also a woman driven by her devotion and desires.

Stanton Carlisle: You’ve got a heart as big…

Zeena Krumbein: Sure, as big as an artichoke, a leaf for everyone.

In the opening scene we behold The Miracle Woman Zeena, standing on the platform by her tent, like a Greek goddess, a soothsayer, weary with visions of things that have played out in her life. Circumstances the Tarot Cards have foretold, that she is driven by the past winds of fate to observe. Zeena is at the mercy of her willing subjugation to her plight and the sacrifices she’s made in life as a caretaker and mystic witness.

Molly (played by Coleen Gray) is the sweet young girl in the carny act, billed as the Electro Girl who sports a galvanic bra that can withstand electrical shocks so she doesn’t get fried in her seat. Letting the arc of electricity flow between her hands is a mesmerizing scene. It gives Molly her almost fairy-like quality. The mirror with which to reflect whatever decency might still be inherently shrouded in Stanton’s dark heart. She can only see his beauty and his passion for working the crowd and his gift for showmanship. She doesn’t understand his ruthless nature, or that he is exploiting her affections. Molly is in danger of being manipulated by Stanton who plunges into marrying Molly for the purpose of using her in his new act. Her face is almost lit like an icon of a painted Roman angel, cannot see the wheels turning in Stanton’s eyes when he talks about them being together.

Stanton is fascinated by The Geek in the sideshow. This is the carnival’s biggest draw, but a subversive illegal attraction that even some performers won’t work there if a show carries such a grotesque feature. But Stanton is fixated on him. “How do you get a guy to be a Geek, is he born that way?” It’s an unsettling foreshadowing of events. “I can’t understand how can get so low” We can hear the live chickens squawking as they are being fed to The Geek. It’s a disturbing effective use of background sound.

Stanton thrives on the energy of the carnival “I like it, it gets me to see those yokels out there gives you a superior feeling, as if YOU were in the know and they were on the outside looking in.” We see Stanton as an egoist with a ruthless narcissism to take over, be in control, to be omnipotent.

Stanton first starts working on Zeena’s affections in order to procure the secret code. She doesn’t want to hurt Pete. But she is taken in by Stanton’s seductions. If the new act works, she could make enough money to get Pete “the cure”. “Oh Stan do you think I could make the big time again?” Her arm stretched out leaning on a pole, he kisses the soft insides where her arm bends. She is torn between enabling Pete and being seduced by their lustful manipulations by Stanton.

Stanton Carlisle: What kind of deck is this?

Zeena Krumbein: This is the tarot. Oldest kind of cards in the world. Pete says the gypsies brought them out of Egypt. They’re a wonder for giving private readings.

Stanton Carlisle: I’d say. They look plenty weird.

Stanton shows up later at Zeena’s hotel room where she has laid out the Tarot cards. He asks what she’s doing. “This is the Tarot, the oldest kind of cards in the world … whenever I have something to decide or don’t know which way to turn.”

She tells him to cut the cards 3 times. “Look Stan that’s the Wheel of Fortune, Pete and I never had it this good!” Everything looks good for them in the reading, but there is no sign of Pete dead or alive. Zeena starts to panic. Stanton picks up a card that had fallen on the floor face down. Zeena is shaken, “It couldn’t be like that it’s too awful, it’s too crazy what have I done!”

She tells Stan to take his bags and get out, it’s all off. Stan asks what he’s done, she says “Nothing! but I can’t go against the cards.”

Nightmare Alley’s characters each have their own level of spiritual awareness, an intimate relationship with their own nature of worship. Zeena dabbles in the esoteric mystical aspects of superstitions of luck and curses. The Marshall who comes to shut the carnival down, has a very quiet reverence as a good Christian man, Molly is the embodiment of moral purity, and Stanton sees himself wielding his own religion as a Nietzcsheqsue Uberman.

Zeena shows Stanton Pete’s card. The Hanged Man is the recurring theme of the film. This again is the foreshadowing of what can happen when humanity is sacrificed for power. She tells Stan when a card falls face down on the floor, whatever is going to happen is going to happen fast and it’s never good. Stans says “That’s for the chumps, to fall for one of your own boob catchers” He’s so superior, so ruthless, he cannot even fathom that the warning might be credible. We don’t really see shades of humanity in him but a curiosity, as Stanton asks “I wonder why I’m like that, never thinking about anybody but myself.” Zeena asks if his folks dropped him on his head. “Yeah, they dropped me.” This gives us a little background, he grew up in an orphanage where he became aware of the Gospel that came with black and blue bruises and its useful passages he can avail himself of later. They kiss, and Zeena is once again under his charismatic control.

Molly: You ought to have heard Stan spout the gospel to that old hypocrite. It was like being in Sunday school.

Zeena Krumbein: You must have been raised pretty religious.

Stanton Carlisle: Yeah, in a county orphanage.

Molly: Didn’t you have any folks?

Stanton Carlisle: If I did, they weren’t much interested.

Zeena Krumbein: Where’d you learn all this gospel?

Stanton Carlisle: In the orphanage. That’s what they used to give us on Sunday after beating us black-and-blue all week. Then when I ran away, they threw me in the reform school. But that’s where I got wise to myself. I let the chaplain save me, and got a parole in no time. Boy, how I went for salvation! Comes in kind of handy when you’re in a jam.

On a foggy night, crickets chanting, Zeena’s husband Pete, staggering in between the caravans of the carnival stumbles upon Stanton one night. Zeena has cut him off from his drinking. Pete has the dropsies. In the background, we hear the Geek wailing, screaming, ungodly screams. “He’s got the heebie-jeebies again.”

Throughout the film’s darker scenes the usage of music by Cyril Mockeridge, with orchestral arrangements by Maurice Packh underscores moments with a diabolical motif, again in keeping with the Faustian theme. Several waves of glossolalia especially where the Geek runs amok on the carny grounds are simply mind-altering.

Stanton gives Pete the bottle he’s stashed in the prop trunk and says here you need this more than me. Pete tells him “You’re a good kid Stan, you’re going places, nothing can keep you out of the big time, just like I used to have.” He reminisces about him and Zeena during their big time when they had top billing. The Geek comes stumbling near them singing an incoherent tune, “Poor guy” Stanton says. “If it weren’t for Zeena they’d be saying that about me, Poor Pete, Pete the Geek” He remembered that fellow when he’d first showed up at the carnival. He used to be plenty big-time. “Mental Act?” “what difference does it make, old smoked meat now, just a bottle a day rum dumb and he thinks this job is heaven, as long as there’s a bottle a day and a dry place to sleep it off. There’s only one thing this stuff (bottle) will make you forget how to forget.”

Pete jumps onto the platform, turns the grungy, swinging overhead lamp on, and begins his little soliloquy, his old spiel “Throughout the ages certain men have looked into the polished crystal (holds the bottle of liquor to his breast and gazes) and see, is it something about the quality of the crystal itself, or does the gazer merely use it to turn his own gaze inward” now holding his hands to his temples as if to gleaning visions” in a seriously, sage like tone, as if giving a sermon (again the comparative to religion).

“Who knows, but visions come, slowly shifting their form, visions come, WAIT! the shifting shapes, begin to clear.”

Pete Krumbein: Throughout the ages, man has sought to look behind the veil that hides him from tomorrow. And through the ages, certain men have looked into the polished crystal… and seen. Is it some quality of the crystal itself, or does the gazer merely use it to turn his gaze inward? Who knows? But visions come. Slowly shifting their forms… visions come. Wait. The shifting shapes begin to clear. I see fields of grass… rolling hills… and a boy. A boy is running barefoot through the hills. A dog is with him. A… DOG… is… with… him.

Stanton Carlisle: Yes… go on… his name was Jib. Go on!

Pete Krumbein: [Choked laughter] Humph. See how easy it is to *hook* ’em!

He begins to describe fields of rollings hills to Stanton, a young barefooted boy, and a dog. Stanton caught up in Pete’s oration begins to tell him, “His name is Jim, go on” Pete breaks from his trance and begins to laugh sardonically, “See how easy it is to hook ’em!” he cackles. “Stock reading fits everybody. Every boy has a dog”, as he laughs. But Pete’s demonstration deepens Stanton’s hunger to obtain the ability to entrance people by elocution and persuasion. To divine people’s souls by reading their body language. To Stanton, this is a form of religion. To be a holy man of the mental act. An art form, a business, and again, a spiritual rescuer to those who are in a crisis of faith — only… for a price.

That night, Stanton unknowingly slips Pete a bottle of wood alcohol that Zeena uses to burn the papers of written questions from the audience. Stanton accidentally reaches into the prop trunk and grabs the wrong bottle. The bottle that Pete had been drinking that night. He dies and leaves Zeena to renew the act with Stanton as her partner working for the crowd. But the guilt that starts to build up in Stanton’s psyche haunts him, and eventually becomes the spiraling down, the turn of his destiny and his ruination. While climbing to the top in society being billed at a Chicago nightclub as a Mentalist he is attracting a lot of attention.

Zeena shows up at Stanton and Molly’s hotel for a surprise visit. Again she lays out the Tarot cards “You’re going to the top, like a skyrocket” The one card face down is The Hanged Man, Pete’s card. This rattles Stanton. Molly believes it and Zeena warns Stanton not to take the act in the direction he is thinking. He calls Zeena and Bruno carnival freaks and tells them to get out. But Zeena comes back having forgotten her Tarot deck. Again, Zeena finds The Hanged Man face down on the floor. We hear the music glossolalia again, the disturbing voices resurrected in the backdrop. Later, Stanton goes to get a massage and when the masseuse puts alcohol on Stan’s skin to close his pores, he thinks of Pete about the night he inadvertently switched the bottles of alcohol that killed Pete. The act he benefited from because it created his opportunity to use “the code” and rise to the top.

At the nightclub in Chicago, in the audience one night, there is a woman, Dr Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) a cunning psychoanalyst, who challenges Stanton. He goes to see her at her office and a new unholy relationship is forged. Not based on sexuality but the mutual bond of greed and opportunistic paranoia. She is the femme fatale of this noir film. She records all her patient’s sessions and Stanton wants to be able to use that information to his advantage, by having inside details of people’s lives that he can use in his Mentalist act. The name Lilith again is an interesting element. Lilith in Hebrew mythology is related to a class of female demons. When Stanton accuses her of secretly recording her patient’s sessions she espouses “Anything my patients reveal is as sacred as if given under the seal of the confessional.” Again references to the religious structure. And the twisted bond they forge from this point on is based on “it takes one, to catch one.”

Ritter gives Stanton secret information about a wealthy patient of hers. Ezra Grindle (Taylor Holmes). Stan sees it as “An absolute blown in the glass clincher” Stan doesn’t see this skeptic as a challenge because his ego is so poised that he is certain he can con this old man into believing that he can manifest the spirit of his long-dead love Dory. Using his command of the Gospel, Ezra a man who obviously struggles with religion, is told to “prepare himself more with prayer and good works” To Stanton this translates into receiving enough money for his own radio station and tabernacle.

Trying to use Molly as an accomplice to dupe the very wealthy man out of a fortune Molly threatens to leave Stan. He manipulates her love for him by telling her “What should I do, should I let the man’s soul be lost forever, or should I stake my own to save it!” It is this brilliant subterfuge that convinces Molly to stand by him for this ruse. She is so bound by her blindness, that she follows Stanton a bit further. She agrees to play the ghost of Dora.

From here on in, Stanton begins his descent down the darkened pit, where he losses his wicked identity and transforms into a damned, lowly geek.

Stanton Carlisle: Listen to me, I’m no good. I never pretended to be. But, I love you. I’m a hustler. I’ve always been one. But, I love you. I may be the thief of the world, but, with you I’ve always been on the level.

McGraw – Final Carnival Owner: Wait. I just happened to think of something. I might have a job you can take a crack at. Course it isn’t much and I’m not begging you to take it, but it’s a job.

Stanton Carlisle: That‘s all I want.

McGraw – Final Carnival Owner: And we’ll keep you in coffee and cake. Bottle every day, place to sleep it off in. What do you say? Anyway, it’s only temporary, just until we can get a real geek.

Stanton Carlisle: Geek?

McGraw – Final Carnival Owner: You know what a geek is, don’t you?

Stanton Carlisle: Yeah. Sure, I… I know what a geek is.

McGraw – Final Carnival Owner: Do you think you can handle it?

Stanton Carlisle: Mister, I was made for it.

McGraw – Final Carnival Owner: Well, he certainly fooled me. I never recognized him. Stanton. Stanton the Great.

Roustabout at Final Carnival: How can a guy get so low?

McGraw – Final Carnival Owner: He reached too high. Good night, boys. Lock up.

Roustabout at Final Carnival: Good night.

William Lindsay Gresham discusses his creative angst researching Nightmare Alley, as a backdrop to his own movement toward faith. Here it’s cited his discovery of Tarot:

“During my analysis I had a brief period of prosperity: I managed to write a novel, savage, violent, and neurotic, which made money. Yet with a temporary release from financial worries, my own inner nightmare grew worse. It was not true, then, that men live by bread alone?” (Source)

And not forgotten: yet more women still in peril

In my series women in peril, I am approaching certain films that fit several other sub genres. I might use titles for this particular series but later on down the road, I will examine them further with commentaries whichÂ fall under other genres / Classic horror, obscure cult films of the 70’s, Cinematic madness, Satan in Suburbia, the slasher flick and so on. These might be approached from a different P.O.V. or thematic relevance.

Although I’ve been showing images and listing titles of films that stroke that certain chord of femmes in distress, I will want to approach certain of these films in more depth under other categories later on. And just to mention a few more ladies whom I adore: Veronica Lake, Eleanor Parker, Gena Rowlands, Nina Foch, Merle Oberon, Gene Tierney, Ruth Gordon, Linda Darnell, Jane Greer, Jeanne Moreau, Charlotte Rampling, Karen Black and so many more.

Scenes from The Witches

Shadows In The Night (1944)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The Damned Don’t Cry (1950)

The Night Porter (1974)

The Birds (1963)

Ms.45 (1981)

The Innocents (1961)

Dear Dead Delilah (1972)

Trilogy of Terror (1975)

The Witches (1966) alt title The Devil’s Own

Kind Lady (1951)

The Hearse (1980)

Barbarella (1968)

Marnie (1964)

Secret Ceremony (1968)

Ash Wednesday (1973)

Cat people (1942)

Possession (1947)

Bluebeard (1944)

Bedlam (1946)

Three Faces of Eve (1957)

Let’s scare Jessica to death (1971)

Straight on til morning (1972)

Svengali (1931)

My blood runs cold (1965)

Haunts (1977)

In the devil’s garden (1971)

Twisted Nerve (1968)

House of whipcord

Sudden Fear: Shadows wicked, shadows gladdened, an offertory of clocks: time’s running out.

SUDDEN FEAR Joan Crawford: Queen of the volatile eyebrows with a life all their own. Her vulcanized eyebrows frame her austere gaze.

In Sudden Fear, the tale of Myra Hudson, a wealthy San Fransisco Heiress and playwright whose new play Halfway To Heaven is about to become another smashing success. At first, we see a very empowered woman who doesn’t like to be referred to as an heiress. She’s independent and obviously is well-guarded in terms of her emotions. Here she is an iconic figure of the woman as an upper or middle-class protagonist, perhaps unconsciously inviting in something ominous into her safe environment. She’s unaware of being provocative yet allowing this intruder into her normal life.

This is a stylish noir – melodrama with a villain lying in wait for the innocent, vulnerable bystander to give way to the intrusion. A secret desire perhaps to shake up the ordinary world they usually inhabit.

Lester Blaine is played by Jack Palance*, the imposing and saturnine actor whose appearance generates that of a Minotaur rather than a leading man. (Palance’s appearance fated him to play the villain in more than one Noir film in its prime. His jawline conveys menace, his dark and brooding deep-set eyes betray a sinister inner prayer for self-satisfaction and malice.)

Lester has failed to land the lead in the play. Myra, watching from the theater seats while auditioning him, says “he sounds romantic enough, he just doesn’t look romantic enough”

Once Blaine finds out that he hasn’t landed the part in Myra’s play he bursts forth onto the stage and delivers a diatribe about a famous painting of Casanova that she should really visit. “He’s got big ears and a scar, and looks just like me.”

Is he genuinely hurt or is he contriving to get close to Myra? At this point, we are unsure of his motivations, yet we do see a glimpse of something unsavory, sinister in his unctuous mannerism.

Now Myra is on a train from New York headed back to San Francisco, where she sees Blaine from her compartment window and calls out to him. Miraculously Blaine is boarding the same train. After a few awkward moments, Myra trying to justify not picking him for the lead actor in the play, the ice is broken and Blaine begins to romance her. We sense that his charm, his parlor tricks of affectionate gestures are lures for the bait. His oily, silken tone, wiling her into his gaze and out of her safety zone. To us, he has a sadist’s air, but Myra has already started to loosen her grip on her formality. She has given in. They ride through to Chicago, where he takes her to an acting school for wrestlers, we’re told. Back on the train, he asks her why she works. “The desire to achieve, to stand on my own two feet, instead of my father’s fortune, make a place in the world.” Here again, we are reminded that Myra was a very strong-minded and independent femme inoffensif.

Now that the Minotaur is lurking, and the romance has been kindled, Crawford’s face is softening with each frame as she accepts him into her soul’s stoic citadel. They share quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and then their hands mesh, his fingers baring a ring, she asks if it’s a wedding ring, he says it’s his mother’s.

The trap is set. She is caught. She brings him home to her apartment in San Francisco where he meets her two friends, her lawyer Steve Kearney – played by the innocuous Bruce Bennett, the ever-vigilant and devoted attorney/friend. She then takes him up to her study where “plays are born” She shows him her dictaphone where she records everything, scene descriptions, and the bequests for her last will and testament. And they drink milk. A virtuous drink. The drink of lily white modesty. He begins a soliloquy from one of her plays. ” It’s flattering to be quoted. Another move closer, piercing her tough heart seed. He moves towards her and now they kiss.

We are taken along through scenes of sightseeing the great points of the lookout for San Francisco; the Trolley, the Bridge, and Muir Woods. The music tells us the mood is that of metropolitan musings. The bustle of car horns and trumpet hollers. The city is now fresh with a new love for Myra and Lester Blaine.

The celebratory, outdoor frames end and suddenly relinquish themselves into a frantic moody setting atÂ Myra’s apartment. Guests downstairs at a party she’s thrown in honor of Lester. She’s frantically ringing his room. We see her black glassy shoes pacing in the room. She lights a cigarette. Her friends Steve and Ann come in to see if she’s coming back down to the party.

Now we see Blaine pacing. His shoes are the vantage point with which we understand the fervor of his first inscrutable stratagem set forth to weaken Myra’s self-possession. She relentlessly rings his phone. He’s lying on top of his bed, smoking a cigarette allowing her to become more diminished with every dead silence.

She tells her friends to “Tell the guests anything”. She is now a desperate woman, something must have happened to him. She goes to his room. We see him at the top of the stairs with his bags packed. He looms like a great menacing presence. Stairs in Noir films are often a symbol, a mechanism to facilitate the atmosphere of the ascent toward danger and insecurity. He tells her that he doesn’t belong in her world. She tells him she has nothing without him. His ruse has worked. They are married.

At her summer house, they awaken from their marriage bed, and greet the new day, by walking out onto the balcony near the stairs leading down towards the ocean. It’s very steep and rocky with no guardrail. Treacherous if you were to lose your balance. I wondered, will he try to push her down this rocky tor? What Myra calls the precipice. Blaine feigns concern for her safety and she quotes Nietzsche’s ‘Live dangerously” a foreshadowing of the pact she has inadvertently signed with the devil.

At the reception of Mr and Mrs Lester Blaine, the dubious Irene Neves played by the sweltering Gloria Grahame comes walking in on the arm of Steve’s brother Jr. (Mike Connor) The sultry vulpine blond unwraps her white head scarf and everything changes from here.

We see Lester leering at Irene curiously. Do they have a past relationship?

After the reception Irene, once again climbing a set of stairs to her apartment, puts the key in the door, and is startled by Lester who comes at her from behind. She screams as he pushes her into the apartment with brutal compulsion. Sounding furious he asks ” What are you doing in San Francisco?” she replies so cooly “An old friend of mine married a San Francisco girl.” Throwing a newspaper at him she follows up with “Here I’ll show you it was in all the newspapers.” He slaps it out of her hands and says “Don’t be cute.”

Now we understand that we have a pair of anti-social opportunists who not only know each other but have never severed the relationship. Lester gets furious at the thought of Irene dating Jr. and wants to know what she’s done to impress him. He warns Irene, if she ever does, she’ll need a new face! Blaine’s violent potency has manifested in full force now for us to see.

Amidst several diversionary tactics, like asking Steve, Myra’s trusted friend and lawyer to help him find work because he would never live off his wife’s money. Lester and Irene meet in secret. He asks why she’s still dating Jr. “Cause the rents are due, and I’d rather eat dinner than starve.” These two ruthless people begin to plot Myra’s demise. They must be careful. It must look like an accident.

Steve suggests to Myra that she makes a sensible change in terms of the will. She is about to inherit her father’s entire fortune soon. But Myra says she won’t hang onto any man she loves from the grave nor from this side of the grave either. For the first time, she feels poor because all she has to give is her love to Lester. And for the first time, she feels rich because she is getting so much back from him in return. She wants to share all her worldly goods with this reptilian deceiver she’s fallen in love with. She bequeaths her entire estate onto the Dictaphone, in her study. That night there is a party, and people are playing poker, Lester and Irene slip away into Myra’s study and begin to conspire and embrace.

The next day, the secretary tells Myra that she left the dictaphone on. Myra disagrees but lets the issue drop. Once in the study, she listens to the bequest “For the happiness he’s given me…” then a sudden skip in the recording and now we hear Lester and Irene who had inadvertently recorded themselves scheming.

And now the veil of deception has been lifted. She has been so naive, so fragile for once. She is horrified, the look on her face bears her devastation and betrayal. She hears how he’s never loved her. How it makes his skin crawl to tell her he loves her. She weeps, as she hears them read the will that Steve intended for Lester. ”She doesn’t sign the Will until Monday, and can’t get the old man’s money ’til then, suppose something happens between now and Monday?” They have to make it look like an accident. They’ve got 3 days. The record starts to skip. And Gloria Grahame’s razor-edged voice, drones on and on ” I know a way… I know a way”. Myra runs to the bathroom and gets sick. She realizes that she’s got proof of their plot to murder her, but in her frenzy to hide the recording she accidentally breaks it.

This scene is one of the most powerfully driven slow burning revelations– the gestalt of this dark story. The droning voice of Irene, she’s defenseless, staring at her marriage bed, where lies were perpetrated upon her. The incessant violation, “It’ll have to look like an accident.” She clasps her ears. She begins to dream, the dreams sow the seed of nightmares. All the ways she could die. Being pushed from the tallest window. Being smothered by unseen hands pushing a pillow over her face. Suddenly she is woken up by Blaine who has broken through the door, acting concerned. She flinches, afraid of him. We see the shift in her now. Her gaze has shifted to abject fear of this man. Then her fear seems to turn to scorn. A little sign of her durability comes back to her complexion.

Instead of going to her friend Steve who would have readily believed her story, she contrives to undermine Lester and Irene by laying the groundwork for her own strategy, to set them both up. The film begins to unwind into a dark forest of shadowy contours and murkiness. Scenes of Crawford’s machinations through the lens of her extraordinary eyes. The shadow of the clock’s pendulum oscillates on her face, over her heart, while she envisions her plan enacted. There are a variety of scenes with clocks. The use of the clock in this film is emblematic of Myra’s living on borrowed time. Of time running out for all the players. There’s also a very gripping and inventive scene with a little wind-up toy dog that escalates the atmosphere of agitation and tautness. The shadows that frame the figures are like contoured walls of darkness. Crawford’s eyes convey much of the rest of the narrative.

You’ll have to see the film yourself, I will not spoil the way the rest of this film plays out. It doesn’t unbend at the final frame but rather awakens from the shadows, the noir landscape, the sound of high heels fleeing on cobblestone streets no more. Wet down in bleak and dreary puddles of rain. The sun comes up slowly mounting on the back of the morning sky, ascending renewal. The end of sudden fear.

Sudden Fear features a screenplay by Lenore Coffee and Robert Smith from the novel by Edna Sherry and was directed by David Miller and the director of photography was Charles Lang Jr. (Some Like It Hot, How The West Was Won, The Magnificent Seven, Charade, and Wait Until Dark.)
The film’s evocative score is by the prolific composer Elmer Bernstein.

* Several years ago I had the great privilege of sitting at a neighboring table across from the great Jack Palance, at a very quaint Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. Although I had been such a huge fan of his for years, I did not want to insinuate myself into his dinner conversation. He had been sketching with crayons on the tablecloth something for someone who appeared to be a director. They were obviously discussing the details of some project. I felt so special to be seated near him. In person, he seemed as gentle as a labrador retriever. Not the imposing gargoyle of a man that he came across in most of his films. I consider that meal, a very special moment in time.

Women In Peril: Feature Overview Part II

Here is the second installment, a few more films that I consider highly engrossing for this theme, Women In Peril, horror/noir/mystery, and thriller. Some films create environments where the women in danger are subjected to psychological distress as much as they are in mortal danger of their lives. I hope you find this additional list interesting and entertaining. Again, I will review some or most of what I’ve listed below. I’ll go more in-depth as I usually do once I am examining a film as a singular entry which allows me more time to elaborate on the details, plot design, my impressions of the film, and a little referential details as I always like to do.

Note: I can’t do Last House On The Left, because I could never bring myself to see it. And I was interested in covering Tattoo, but I’ve heard it’s just a vile misogynist mess, so I’m not sure I’d even waste the time.

And I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of The Todd Killings which I would LOVE to see. Update: Got it!

The Todd Killings (1971) -The Oedipal Minstrel Killer of Tuscon and the Cult of Anti-Hero Worship

The Killing Kind (1973) I won’t be reviewing this film. I mention it because it fits the genre, yet I won’t be able to watch it again as I have previously stated there is a horrible scene of animal cruelty to cats and I just can’t bring myself to watch it again. I am a huge admirer of Curtis Harrington, yet I believe the film would have been better if he hadn’t included that aspect in this film. John Savage plays illegitimate Terry Lambert a young man falsely accused of participating in a gang-rape. While in prison he develops a violent sexual penchant towards women. Once released he moves back home with his emasculating mother played by Ann Southern, which only fuels his rage further. He winds up going on a killing spree of revenge toward all the women he perceives as having wronged him. Also stars Ruth Roman

Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969) A mentally disturbed man stalks a woman who had once aborted the child he had fathered.

Stars Paul Burke and Carol White. Directed by Mark Robson. Again, I vaguely remember a cat being killed in this film, so I might skip the review.

Conflict (1945) Humphrey Bogart plays Richard Mason who pretends to be an invalid so he can plot to kill his wife Kathryn He does, however, kill her on a lonely mountain road. Or did he really succeed? Soon after, He smells her perfume, finds her jewelry, and sees an envelope addressed in her handwriting. Stars Alexis Smith and Sydney Greenstreet.

The Fantasist (1986) When an Irish woman moves from the suburbs to Dublin, she begins receiving phone calls from a stranger. Stars Moira Harris, Christopher Cazenove, and Timothy Bottoms.

Screaming Mimi (1958) Starring Anita Ekberg and directed by Gerd Oswald, She plays a tormented Exotic dancer Virginia Wilson. Who witnesses a murder? Each victim had purchased a contorted sculpture of a woman called the Screaming Mimi, which was created by her step-brother Charlie who was also responsible for shooting her attacker.

So Sad About Gloria (1975)

A young woman just released from a mental hospital moves back in with her family. However, she is soon troubled by disturbing visions in which she commits a series of axe murders. Stars Lori Saunders and Dean Jagger.

The Climax (1944)

Starring Boris Karloff he plays Dr Hohner the theatre physician at the Vienne Royal Theatre who has already killed his mistress and then becomes obsessed with a young diva (Susanna Foster)and goes to extreme lengths to make sure she will never sing for anyone else but him.

The 7th Victim (1943) A young woman (Kim Hunter) in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York’s Greenwich Village and finds that they may have something to do with her sibling’s random disappearance. Starring Kim Hunter and Jean Brooks, this is yet another of Val Lewton’s masterpieces, directed by Mark Robson who worked very closely with Lewton on his collection of shadow masterpieces for the poverty row scene set up to compete with Universal. I will be doing a feature on Val Lewton in the future and will be revisiting this film as part of his collection.

Jane Eyre (1943) Faithful adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s gothic romance about Jane played by Joan Fontaine, who has had a brutal childhood in a stark and cruelly run orphanage, comes to an old manor house, to take care of Margaret O’Brien, the daughter of the mysterious and angry Edward Rochester, played by the brooding Orson Welles.

The Big Heat (1953) Starring Glenn Ford as a jaded cop and Gloria Grahame the ex-mob gal whose face has been disfigured by her scorned lover (Lee Marvin). Ford enlists her help in trapping the mobster who was responsible for killing his wife. Grahame’s character is so integral to the plot, as she is thrown in harm’s way once again. Noir at its best.

Straight Jacket

1964) stars Joan Crawford and Diane Baker. Directed by the showman William Castle and written by Robert Bloch, this is a story about insanity and the mother/daughter relationship complexities that unfold, once Crawford is released from an institution

Revenge, Axes, and Motherhood.

In Walk On The Wild Side (1962) Capucine plays Halie Gerard a kept woman by Jo (Barbara Stanwyck)who runs a house of ill repute. Jane Fonda(Kitty) and Laurence Harvey (Dove) stumble onto the House where Barbara Stanwyck keeps a tight hold on her call girls. When Capucine wants to leave with Harvey she threatens her safety and puts her life in jeopardy. Directed by Edward Dmytryk and the sultry titles by Saul Bass, make this a sexy thriller. Also starring Anne Baxter and Joanna Moore who also suffers at the hands of her brutal boyfriend Richard Rust.

Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) Otto Preminger directs this psychological masterpiece, where Carol Lynley comes to London with her little girl and her brother Kier Dullea. When Bunny her child goes missing after dropping off at school, no one believes her story, or that the little girl ever existed at all. Lynley’s ordeal is almost more punishing than if she herself were in danger because the psychic pain she endures is more compelling in a lot of ways. Laurence Olivier plays the kindly detective on the case.

Midnight Lace (1960)

Doris Day stars as the wife of David Niven. One day she hears a voice in the fog, and then she is continued to be assailed by an unseen figure. Is David Niven trying to gaslight her?

The Lodger (1944) Directed by John Brahm and scripted by Barre Lyndon, this adaptation of the Jack the Ripper-themed treatment stars Merle Oberon and Laird Cregar as the mysterious boarder who lives upstairs with his little black bag.

The Snake Pit (1948)

Directed by Anatole Litvak, this stars Olivia de Havilland as a woman whose harrowing life of hallucinations and memory loss come spiraling out of control as she is then thrown into a mental institution, the snake pit.

When A Stranger Calls (1979) Carol Kane stars as the babysitter who picks up the phone only to hear the voice on the other end say ” Have you checked the children”

Laura(1944) directed by Otto Preminger is a film noir masterpiece starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Vincent Price. A police detective Dana Andrews falls in love with the woman whose murder he’s investigating.

Human Desire (1954) Directed by Fritz Lang this stars Gloria Grahame as the emotionally abused wife of jealous brut Broderick Crawford who works with Glenn Ford as a train engineer. Once Ford starts up an affair with Grahame things really get complicated for everyone. Blackmail, violence, murder, and passion. Another noir masterpiece.

The Unsuspected (1947) Directed by Michael Curtiz, Claude Raines plays Victor Grandison “Grandy” who hosts a radio show called ” The Unsuspected” which is a murder mystery program. A girl has been murdered. Joan Caulfield and Audrey Totter star in this intense thriller.

Fingers At The Window (1942)Stars Lew Ayres and Laraine Day and Basil Rathbone. There is an Axe Murderer running amok in the streets of Chicago. Lew Ayres takes a special interest in Laraine Day when he discovers that she might be next.

Dragonwyck (1946) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price as the Lord of the Land in old Upstate New York, who takes Tierney as his bride after his first wife succumbs to illness. Once Tierney is on the estate, she finds her gentleman husband, who has strange mood swings and secrets as he insists that she bare him a son. Outstanding story with exceptional acting by Price and Tierney. Another of my favorite actresses.

The Woman In White (1948) Starring Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Gig Young, and Agnes Moorehead, Young is a painter who comes to give lessons to Eleanor Parker, when a strange and mysterious woman dressed in white keeps appearing. Is she a ghost? And what are the secrets that Sidney Greenstreet is keeping?

*Screaming Mimi https://thelastdrivein.com/2012/03/24/screaming-mimi-1958-part-1-ripper-vs-stripper/

*The Big Heat https://thelastdrivein.com/2020/08/11/the-big-violence-of-fritz-langs-the-big-heat-1953/

*Bunny Lake is Missing https://thelastdrivein.com/2013/03/29/bunny-lake-is-missing-1965-seance-on-a-wet-afternoon-1964-otto-premingerbryan-forbes-a-conspiracy-of-madness-part-1/

*Dragonwyck https://thelastdrivein.com/2015/04/03/dark-patroons-hat-box-killers-2015-the-great-villain-blogathon/

Women In Peril Series Overview: A part of film history/sub-genre Part I

Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry, Wrong Number 1948.

With the countless list of films in the sub-genre, I am starting to list just a smattering of very memorable women in peril films over the past decades that have left an impression on me and some that have truly left their mark on the horror/Noir/mystery/thriller genres.

Here are the films that I plan on discussing in depth with individual reviews to follow. I’m sure that I’ve forgotten some, so I’ll be periodically adding whatever films I might have overlooked during this series. Each day I’ll offer another essay on most, if not all of the films seen here. If there’s a film that you’ve noticed I’ve omitted please feel free to drop me a note and I’ll gladly add it to the mix.

I’ve considered adding Rosemary’s Baby and The Mephisto Waltz, but I’d like to save them as a pair of essays on Witchcraft in cinema.

The criteria that I am using to classify what I consider to be a woman in peril film is how I view the plot narrative as seen a) through the female gaze b)there is one or several main female characters who are central to the plot and are not just on the periphery of the film. There are so many films where women characters are either victims, in danger, or are targeted, and so their presence satellites around the story but does not drive the narrative enough for me to qualify it for this sub-genre study.

As in Psycho, Dressed To Kill where the female lead is killed in the beginning these films we are following more of the Protagonist(Norman Bates) as in Peeping Tom, or Silence of The Lambs( Hannibal Lechter)where women have been murdered, they should be reserved for solo review because the plot is viewed through the Protagonist’s lens. In The Boston Strangler 1968, there are various women victims, yet the film is shot almost sensitively facilitated by Henry Fonda’s character who guides Tony Curtis ( Albert DeSalvo) through a self-reflexive process in order to reassemble the timeline and the motivation and substance of his insanity which lead to his crimes. It is more Psychological True Crime Police Drama

The films are not in any chronological order nor are they sorted by definition of how much I either loved the film or at least found the film entertaining. Here is a general synopsis:

You will notice that I am a huge fan of Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Baxter Joan Bennett, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Grahame, Lee Remick, Simone Signoret, and more. 70’s actresses like Faye Dunaway, Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett, Barbara Parkins, Joanna Pettit, Stefanie Powers, and more.

Beware My Lovely (1952)

Stars Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan whose volatile temper makes him a walking time bomb.

The Blue Gardenia (1953) Starring Ann Baxter and Richard Conte

Baxter gets mixed up in a murder mystery and must try and figure out whether she’s the killer or not!

Lady In A Cage (1964)Â

Olivia de Havilland stars as The Lady, Mrs.Hilyard, a wealthy poetess who lives in a three-story city mansion. The cage that the film refers to is her elevator, which remains suspended above the main floor due to an electrical failure on a July 4th weekend. While ringing her outside alarm, she is noticed by a drunken derelict, who breaks into the house, and avails himself of several items and alcohol, but doesn’t come to Mrs.Hilyard’s aide. He leaves with the goods but returns a while later with aÂ prostitute and three teenage hoodlums, one of which is played by James Caan, who proceed to terrorize Mrs.Hilyard as they wreck her home. A very early home invasion film for its time.

Cast A Dark Shadow (1955)

Stars Dirk Bogarde as the sociopath Edward “Teddy” Bare who marries an elderly woman Margaret Lockwood, for her money. He dotes on her until the time is right, then moves on to his next victim.

Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

A masterpiece of Gothic proportions Robert Aldridge directs this Southern Gothic tale with

Bette Davis as Charlotte Hollis, an aging recluse living out her life on the secluded family plantation, living with delusions of the past, lost loves. Tortured by horrible memories and hallucinations. Thirty-seven years before, John Mayhew her married lover, was gruesomely beheaded and mutilated by an unknown assailant.

Charlotte is a wealthy southern spinster who is shunned by her community for the grisly murder some 40 years prior.

She is taken care of by her faithful servant Velma played brilliantly by Agnes Moorehead. Charlotte holds up in the house refusing to leave when she is issued an eviction notice. Enter, “Cousin Miriam” with her gentleman friend played by Joseph Cotton. Unfortunately, Miriam has other motivations for coming to the Hollis Plantation. Miriam is the sole beneficiary once she can manage to have Charlotte committed for her odd and reclusive behavior. This is a tragic and twisted tale of revenge and greed.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)

Directed again by the great Robert Aldridge this was the first time he brought the two great titans together, regardless of how tumultuous their relationship was off-screen.

Bette Davis plays Jane Hudson, a washed-up child star living as a recluse in her mansion with her invalid sister, Blanche played by Joan Crawford. The psychological warfare that Jane wages against her sister a virtual prisoner is intense. A story of envy, jealousy, loss of youth and revenge.

Sudden Fear (1952)

Starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, and Gloria Grahame. After an ambitious actor insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy middle-aged playwright and marries her, he plots with his mistress to murder her.

Die Die My Darling aka Fanatic (1965)

Stephanie Powers stars as Patricia Carroll who arrives in London to get remarried, and regretfully takes a detour out to the rural English countryside to see her former fiance’s mother the controlling Mrs Trefoile. Played by Tallulah Bankhead. Mrs.Trefoile blames Pat for an automobile accident that killed her son.

Sorry Wrong Number (1948)

Barbara Stanwyck plays Leona Stevenson a daddy’s little girl married to Burt Lancaster. She’s a sickly, dependent wife confined to her bed. One night, she picks up the phone and accidentally overhears a conversation between two men planning a murder. She becomes increasingly desperate as she tries to work out who the victim is so the crime can be prevented.

Rebecca (1940)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on Daphne Du Maurier’s novel, Joan Fontaine becomes the second Mrs de Winter, the new wife of Maxim de Winter Laurence Olivier who brings his bride back to his estate Manderlay. Ultimately she winds up living in the shadows of the first Mrs and a battle of the wills ensues with the great characterization of Mrs Danvers played by Judith Anderson, who keeps her unholy obsession with the first wife alive. Secrets, sensuality, murder, and malice.

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Another Hitchcock thriller:

Ex-tennis pro-Tony Wendice decides to murder his wife for her money. He blackmails an old college associate to strangle her, but when things go wrong he sees a way to turn events to his advantage.

Ray Milland plays Tony Wendice who finds out that his wife Margo played by Grace Kelly had an affair. Tony sets out to plan the perfect murder but his plans go terribly astray when the killer becomes the victim instead. Wendice trying to cover everything up, decides then to make it appear that Margo had an ulterior motive for killing the man.

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

directed by Robert Siodmak

Dorothy McGuire plays Helen a pretty mute, who is a domestic worker for old ailing Mrs. Warren, the great Ethel Barrymore. Warren’s two sons, Albert (a professor) and womanizing impudent Steven, also live in the Warren mansion.

There are a series of murders involving ‘women with afflictions’ and Mrs Warren starts to worry about Helen. and when another murder occurs inside the Warren mansion, it becomes obvious that Helen is in danger.

Gaslight (1944)

Why does the flame go down? In a London house where the fixtures are gas flames. The lovely Ingrid Bergman plays Paula Anton who is being driven mad by her husband Charles Boyer. Joseph Cotton plays a Scotland Yard detective who suspects that something isn’t quite right. suspects. This Oscar-winning (Best Actress) dark mystery, introduces Angela Lansbury in her first acting role plays one of the servants. Also nominated for Best Picture, and Best Actor (Boyer).

Repulsion (1965)Catherine Deneuve plays a very troubled Belgian girl, Carol, who works as a manicurist at a London beauty salon. She shares a flat with her sister Helen and her sister’s married lover, Michael. Carol has a distrust of men. The Landlord is a lecherous sort who terrorizes her, and ultimately her mind begins to unravel over a long weekend while she’s alone in the flat.Â Roman Polanski directs this disturbing imaginative film. The scenes of catalepsy and hallucination are very heavy as Carol descends into madness. I wrote a song called There’s A Crack In The Wall off my neo-classical album The Last Drive In as a tribute to this film.

Reflections of Murder (1974)

Directed by John Badham and stars Tuesday Weld, Sam Waterston, and Joan Hackett. this is a very faithful retelling of Diabolique.

Nightmare (1964) Hammer Horror

A British thriller by the Hammer group. A young girl is released from an institution on her sixteenth birthday, after having been believed to have killed her parents. Is someone trying to drive her mad?

A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

Robert Wagner plays a perfect all-American sociopath in this film about an opportunistic fellow who sets his sights on becoming successful at any cost. When his girlfriend Joanne Woodward gets pregnant that puts an obstacle in his way

Scream Of Fear aka Touch of Fear (1961) Hammer Horror

Starring Ann Todd, Christopher Lee, and Susan Strasberg and scripted by Jimmy Sangster

In England, the body of a young girl is found determined to be an apparent suicide In Nice, France, the chauffeur, , dutifully arrives at the airport to pick up Penny Appleby(Susan Strasberg). She is confined to a wheelchair since a long-ago horse riding accident, Penny has come to stay with her wealthy father and stepmother, Jane played by Ann Todd.

All Penny knows is that she’s told her father is away, but she keeps seeing his corpse all around the house.

A Place In The Sun (1951) Based on Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters.

Games (1967)

One of Curtis Harrington’s best psychological thrillers starring James Caan, Katherine Ross, and Simone Signoret. Ross and Caan are a New York City couple who like to play games. Suddenly Simone Signoret comes into their lives and now the atmosphere changes from parlor games to deadly games.

Diabolique (1955) directed by Henri -George Clouzot

and starring Simone Signoret as the mistress to a cruel headmaster at a private school for boys. She befriends the emotionally abused wife played by Vera Clouzot. And this friendship starts a series of events that are equally mysterious and disturbing.

What’s The Matter With Helen (1971)

Curtis Harrington’s best film, starring Debbie Reynold’s Shelley Winters and Dennis Weaver. The two film queens, play mothers of sons who are convicted of the sensational crime of murder. To escape the scrutiny of the press and the public, they move and open up a small dance studio for little girls. But terror follows them as some unknown assailant is lurking in the shadow, or is there something seriously wrong with Helen ( Shelley Winters)

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Audrey Hepburn plays Susie a blind woman who spends most of the film in the claustrophobic apartment waiting for her husband to come home. He’s been asked to hold a doll for a woman as they get off an airplane. The doll winds up in Susie’s possession. Enter Richard Crenna and Alan Arkin play memorable roles as the thugs who are after the doll which has been stuffed with the heroine.

See No Evil aka Blind Terror (1971)After being blinded in a horseback-riding accident,Â Sarah Mia Farrow moves in with her aunt, uncle, and cousin. During her absence, the entire family is murdered. She is unaware of this until she stumbles onto the bodies, and nowÂ Sarah is trapped in the remote farmhouse and must try and escape the killer who is now hunting her.

Fright (1971)Susan George is the young babysitter Amanda who arrives at the Lloyd residence to spend the evening looking after their young son. There is an escaped maniac from the local asylum on the loose and soon a series of frightening occurrences in the dark old house has Amanda frightened to death. Starring Honor Blackman and Ian Bannen.

And Soon The Darkness ( 1970)

Pamela Franklin stars in this film about two British tourists, young girls who decide to travel the lovely country side of France only to encounter a psychosexual rapist/murderer who begins to stalk them while vacationing. Very taut and claustrophobic journey of two girls out of their element and in harm’s way.

The Collector 1965)

Freddie (Terence Stamp) is a shy psychopathic bank clerk whose passion is collecting butterflies, When he becomes obsessed with art student Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) he sets out to acquire her the same way. He prepares the cellar of the house to be a collecting/killing jar. Based on the novel by John Fowles.

The Stepford Wives (1972) Written and scripted by Ira Levin who also wrote Rosemary’s Baby and Boys from Brazil. It stars Katherine Ross, who unwittingly becomes the target of an elite group of men who decide that their wives in this bedroom town of successful beautiful people aren’t quite perfect as they are. Also starring Paula Prentiss.

No Way To Treat A Lady (1968) Starring Rod Steiger, George Segal, and Lee Remick. Directed by Jack Smight. George Segal is a nice jewish boy detective who’s under his mother’s thumb, this weary yet clever cop winds up playing a cat-and-mouse game with a highly dramatic and psychotic killer who is using the art of disguise to lure and trap his women victims. The element of the Oedipus complex is richly explored in this film and Steiger is masterful as a man coming undone on his mission to destroy his mother with every stroke of the red lipstick he leaves as his calling card.

Blood Simple (1984)

Joel Coen’s of the Coen Brothers startling thriller with Frances McDormand, M.Emmet Walsh, and Dan Hedaya. A bar owner hires a private eye to follow his wife to make sure that she’s not cheating on him.

Night Watch (1973) Elizabeth Taylor plays Ellen Wheeler, a rich widow, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown. One day, while staring out the window, she witnesses a murder. No one especially her husband played by Laurence Harvey nor her friend Billy Whitelaw believes that she’s actually seen a gruesome murder take place in the abandoned house across the courtyard.

Klute (1971)Â Â http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2492530969/

John Klute’s (Donald Sutherland)friend has totally disappeared. The only clue is a connection with a call girl, Bree Daniels played by Jane Fond. Klute sets up shop in Bree’s apartment to try and uncover the answers to what has happened and must guard against the allure of the beautiful New York City call girl he enlists to help him while putting her in grave danger.

You’ll Like My Mother (1972) made for television film

Patty Duke stars as a young pregnant woman who comes to her mother-in-law’s house after her husband dies. Something is not quite right in the house and Richard Thomas plays a really convincing psychopath in this chilling made for tv movie also stars Rosemary Murphy

Night Must Fall (1937)

Robert Montgomery plays the likable psychopath who is hiding out on the loose and keeping his victim’s head in a hat box. I prefer this earlier adaptation of the film with Rosalind Russell to the later 1964 version with Albert Finney. Robert Montgomery is spectacular as the charming psychopath, and Dame May Whitty is superb.

Undercurrent (1946)

Starring Katherine Hepburn, she plays the wife of Robert Taylor who may be a psychopath trying to kill her. Also starring Robert Mitchum.

Shadow Of A Doubt (1943) is another Hitchcock masterpiece.

this one’s about good old Uncle Charlie masterfully played by Joseph Cotton, who just might be the Merry Widow Killer. Teresa Wright is his niece who starts to see him for who he really is.

The Secret Behind The Door (1947)Fritz Lang

Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave are exceptional in this tale of newlyweds Celia and Mark Lamphere. This is a Freudian journey of insanity, undying love, and redemption. Is Redgrave a twisted murderer and will Bennett survive what lies behind the door?

The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)

Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, and Alexis Smith.

Bogart is brilliant as he plays struggling artist Gerry Carroll who meets Sally while on holiday in the country. A romance develops but he doesn’t tell her he’s already married. Suffering from mental illness, Gerry returns home where he paints an impression of his wife as the angel of death and then promptly poisons her. He marries Sally but after a while, he finds a strange urge to paint her as the angel of death too and history seems about to repeat itself. The film also stars the angelic Ann Carter as Carroll’s lonely daughter.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977)Directed by Richard Brooks

Stars Diane Keaton as a dedicated teacher of deaf children by day but lives a dual life as she cruises the bars at night looking for abusive men to have dangerous sexual encounters with. Also stars Richard Gere, and Tuesday Weld.

Ladies In Retirement (1941) Starring Ida Lupino as a housekeeper trying to look out for her two emotionally disturbed sisters. One of which is the wonderful Elsa Lanchester.

The Night Walker (1964) directed by William Castle and written by Robert Bloch stars Barbara Stanwyck whose dream lover Lloyd Bochner may or may not be real. She is haunted by these nightly visions of her dead husband. Also starts Robert Taylor.

Cape Fear (1962)

Exceptional thriller especially with great performances by Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Polly Bergen. Peck is the lawyer who puts Mitchum a rageful psychopath, Max Cady in jail, and now he’s out to terrorize the entire family.

Experiment In Terror (1962)

Directed by Blake Edwards, Lee Remick plays Kelly Sherwood a woman who is being terrorized by a creepy asthmatic man named Garland “Red” Lynch brilliantly played by Ross Martin. He wants her to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works. Red kidnaps Kelly’s younger sister Stefanie Powers in order to strong-arm her into doing what he wants. Glenn Ford plays the cool agent on Red’s trail.

The Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978) written for the screen by John Carpenter

Stars Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, and Brad Dourif a very underrated actor.

Dunaway is a high fashion photographer and her models are being assailed and gruesomely murdered by aÂ psychopath who doesn’t approve of her point of view as art. Very disturbing and well-done thriller.

Coma (1978)

Based on Michael Crichton’s book, stars Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas. Bujold becomes curious about several deaths where patients are inexplicably going into comas.

A Howling In The Woods(1971) Barbara Eden stars as a woman who comes back to the family estate, only to find that her father has disappeared and her stepmother is acting strange. So are all the town folk. Vera Miles and Larry Hagman also star in this made-for-TV film

Death Car On The Freeway (1979)

Starring Shelley Hack and Peter Graves. There is a psychotic driver playing fiery fiddle music on his 8-track stereo as he runs women off the L.A. Freeway in his van. Fun made for tv film.

The Screaming Woman (1972)

The great Olivia de Havilland hears a woman crying from underneath the ground on her property, but no one in the area will believe her. Has Ed Nelson buried his wife alive?

Crescendo ( 1970) Scripted by Jimmy Sangster, Stefanie Powers is an American girl who goes to France to work on her thesis. She stays with the family of a famous pianist/composer, but something isn’t quite right.

Scream Pretty Peggy(1973)

Directed by Gordon Hessler, it stars Bette Davis the mother of Ted Bessell(That Girl) a sculptor who hires young girls to come and take care of his aged mother and insane sister.

The Mad Room (1969)

A remake of 1941’s “Ladies in Retirement” Stars Stella Stevens as a psychotic woman who is a companion to the wealthy Shelley Winters. Stella’s younger sister and brother have just been released from an institution have believed that they killed their parents years ago.

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark (1973) tv film

John Newland directed this really spooky film starring Kim Darby and Jim Hutton. About little evil gremlins that have been trapped in the family fireplace down the cellar. It’s a classic spooky tv film

When Michael Calls (1972) made for tv film

Starring Michael Douglas, Ben Gazzara, and Elizabeth Ashley play Helen who keeps on receiving phone calls from a child, who claims to be her nephew Michael – but Michael died 15 years ago.

Sweet Sweet Rachel (1971) was made for a tv film starring Pat Hingle, Louise Latham, and Stefanie Powers.

An ESP expert uses his powers to try to track down a psychic who uses telepathy to commit murder.

A Taste Of Evil (1971)

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, this film stars Barbara Stanwyck, Barbara Parkins, Roddy McDowall and William Windom. Barbara Parkins has been in an institution after a brutal rape as a child. Now she’s come home to her mother’s house where it happened, and strange things begin to happen. Is she going crazy or is she being assailed by an unseen stalker?

Picture Mommy Dead (1966)Bert I Gordon directs something other than things either growing large or shrinking into oblivion this film is starring Don Ameche, Martha Hyer, and Zsa Zsa Gabor

Susan Shelley is released from an asylum where she’s been confined to after the shock suffered over the fiery death of her mother.

Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)

Starring Laurence Harvey a Korean War veteran who lives with his sister Joanna Petit. A girl wandering on the beach is taken in by Harvey but she soon learns of his strange appetites. Also starring John Ireland and Stuart Whitman.